Tale of a modern space hero

 kw: book reviews, science fiction, space fiction, space stations, hybrids

I prompted for this image based on descriptions in Hybrids: DAX9 by J.E. Robinson. As described in the novel, the boy (he's almost 13) wears special glasses like augmented reality goggles, but alien ultra, except for about three seconds late in the story. But only his eyes give away his hybrid status; his DNA is 95% human.

The protagonist, JR, rescues a woman in New Mexico who has been shot, and she guides him to a hidden spacecraft. The woman is its pilot, but she cannot properly fly the craft because one hand was destroyed, so she asks JR to help with the controls. He is taken to a space base, which we find out later is either behind the moon, from Earth's viewpoint, or buried in its far side; it isn't clear which.

As a wise editor once advised budding authors, "Pose a problem, then solve it." One problem suffices for a short story. For a 400-page novel, it takes several. In this case, the overarching situation is that the hybrid boy, decanted rather than born in the station, is soon to die. He is the latest such experiment, and all have so far failed. Since JR cannot be returned to Earth—and he is OK with that—he is given training to work alongside the scientists who are trying to determine what might be the reason for the long line of failures.

Partial spoiler. Human contact and learning human emotions and experiencing human friendship and love are required. JR provides that. He becomes the big brother that DAX needs.

Eventually we learn that there are a number of alien species involved in a Collective that built the station. Side problems arise from a diversity of opinion about how important the hybrid project might be.

Ideas that intrigued me include the concept of a human-alien hybrid in the first place. I have written elsewhere about the extreme unlikelihood that DNA which evolved elsewhere in the Galaxy would be compatible with earthly DNA. For example: there number of possible coding tables between the 64 DNA codons and the 20 amino acids (used on Earth) is a number with about seventy digits. At least 25 variations, all rather minor, of the earthly coding table are in use, although only one coding table is used for for nuclear DNA in all vertebrate species on Earth. There is no guarantee that DNA that evolved independently would also be coupled with exactly the same 20 amino acids.

Another idea is that of DAX, JR and one of the Guardians, plus a few helper droids, taking a jaunt to Mars, for which the one-way trip takes two hours. I had to figure it out. If a craft accelerates at 1G for an hour, then accelerates oppositely ("decelerates") for an hour, the distance traveled is only 127,000 km. That's not even halfway from Moon to Earth. At closest approach, the distance to Mars is almost 100 million km, and the acceleration would need to be 78 G. These aliens must have pretty good antigravity technology!

Well, not all authors know everything. I know this author; his brother, recently deceased, was a very good friend of mine. I know that J.E. Robinson doesn't have a strong physics background, and I'm willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of the sociological theme. It is well known that experiencing love and affection are required for a human to grow normally. The aliens are more like Vulcans in Star Trek, exquisitely logical and emotionless. One would think, after the Guardians have been watching Earth for centuries, they would have figured out that DAX needed an element in his upbringing that was not dictated by pure logic. But then, there would be no need for this story!

I applaud my friend for his first novel. It is well written and I found it quite a page-turner. He is also a poet, and I like his poetry. This is a bonus image, as I imagine what one portion of the station would look like if it were situated on/in the Moon.